The midwife rushed after us, having overheard we wanted a home birth, but were told she had retired and the new midwife would not arrive in time. ‘Not true,’ she said, which settled it. In my wisdom I had brought my husband along. Sister Heney was delighted to attend a rare home birth for her last delivery. All went well. My epiphany snow baby, she later said. It didn’t take a helicopter landing on the opposite field to transport us to a hospital, only a police land rover to bring this dear midwife up through ice-covered lanes and snowfall to the cottage in the Quantock Hills where snow baby was duly born. We lived in this Somerset hamlet for five blissful years, with the kindest neighbours one could wish for.
That’s me being nostalgic.
My son recently had another birthday. He allowed me to share a blog-post. In it he relates his holiday in Darwin, Australia, where his wife’s family lives.
The post contains thoughts and links regarding the fires in the south of Australia, and also a range of beautiful photographs, some of Tasha painting, and some from a birthday visit to Kakadu National Park, including the art works of the Jawoyn people. A click on the link will bring you to a new page:
Enjoy
Course of Mirrors 
i love gettiong your mils, Ashen… and what a trip to take with Yeshen (albeit ‘virtual’)… thank you both for being.
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of course that was meant to be ‘mails’ and not ‘mils’, but there you go… 😉
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could’ve sorted out the ‘gettoing’ too, while i was there, i guess… i shall retire to my hole… excuse me
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What’s ‘gettoing’ ?
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Dearest Ashen i too adore seeing your mailings as they instantly bring you close and am able almost hear you speaking, Wonderful xxx
Thank You.
May 2020 be all you wish it to be and more.
Alice
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Thank you dear Alice ☼
Addressing the One Being …
Let thy wish become my desire
Let thy will become my deed
Let thy word become my speech beloved
And thy love become my creed
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Snow baby’s post (and his origins) is lovely Ashen thank you for sharing it. (and his origins). The photos are gorgeous. It looked like there was a video at the end – I pressed the arrow but nothing happened.
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Thanks Susan.
You click on the underlined words – Down Under for the Holidays – that’s the link that bring you to my son’s blog post, with many wonderful photos.
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Or try this https://www.yeshen.uk/blog/down-under-for-the-holidays
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I saw all the lovely photos … it is just that arrow at the end that when I pressed didn’t take …
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Nice connections, Ashen, both in the text and to your son’s blog 🙂
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Thank you Cath ☼
And also for the lovely review of Course of Mirrors on you site. It made a grey sky sunny today.
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Thank you for this post—sharing your son’s post ith my friend in Melbourne…
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Lovely, thanks Alexander ☼
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Swimming in that gorge was a sharp longing! The skies were fabulous. Though crocs are not my favourites.
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Apparently the dangerous crocs are the saltwater ones brought inland along swollen rivers after heavy rain. Locals are knowledgeable and seem relaxed. I swam in some beautiful rock pools around Darwin in 2014 with a mix of pleasure and unease.
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Thanks Ashen….and Yeshen and Happy New Year!
Just back from Aus myself but further south and east of Yesh and Tash. I was with my son and his family and we drove through extensive fire damaged areas in New South Wales. My son and his wife were deeply shocked. They said that although fire is part of the natural cycle they have never before encountered anything like what is going on now. The national capital, Canberra, registered a pollution count of 7700, the danger threshold being just 200!!
When I flew between Melbourne and Brisbane , below me was a good 1000 km of contiguous columns of rising smoke. Brisbane, though not so badly affected as other eastern cities, was subject to a thin haze some of the time.
Apparently Australia continues to produce 75% of it’s electricity from coal.
Even in creaky old Blighty, renewables generated more electricity than coal for the first time last year. But I think that nuclear is likely to have to be part of the mix to get us off fossil fuels going forward. The problem seems to be that the various lobbies, coal, gas, solar, wind, water, nuclear, compete with each other thereby distorting the picture so its difficult to get a more truly objective idea of the best mix of energy sources.
Like Mother Nature herself, human affairs are a volatile and fairly unpredictable mix of chaos and order.
Rob
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Happy New Year, Rob. Been thinking of you, while following the distressing spread of fires. The resistance to decisive action around the globe lacks any common sense, is insane, putting Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest on its head, unless one equates fitness with the greed that our runaway systems reward.
Glad you made it back safe.
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Great article and thank you for sharing your son’s blog post. Loved the photos.
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